(in progess...)
Massachusetts isn't really the sort of place you would expect to have strong tornadoes, but around 7pm on Memorial Day of 1995 an F3-F4 tornado tore through Great Barrington, MA, flattening the Fairgrounds, killing 3 people, and injuring 2712.
This is interesting to me because I grew up nearby, and my mom worked in Great Barrington. I spent the next few years of my life freaking out whenever I thought I saw a hook echo on the local radar. Why is this interesting in general?This tornado spurned other strong tornadoes in New England, have inspired research into the relationship between tornadogenesis and local topography, which seems to indicate that conditions are pretty good for tornadoes terrain. Meteorologists found that the north-south orientation of the Hudson and Housatonic valleys, which Great Barrington is in between, increase lower level wind shear when the surface wind is southerly. This increases the likelihood of tornadoes forming in a local "Hot Spot" extending from the mid- Hudson valley, NY to Berkshire County, Massachusetts MA and Litchfield County, ConnecticutCT. (Local Tornado Hot Spot)
Damage pictures:
The most eerie damage was in another part of the graveyard--may of the grave stones blew over. It looked incredibly creepy when you drove past it at 6 am every morning.
This link has some radar Radar images showing the tornado formation:
SUNY Albany Studies the 's page95 Tornado
Research Paper on this, and other New England tornadoesIt even inspired a study of torandogenesis in the NE:
Terrain Influenced Tornadogenesis in the Northeastern United States: An Examination of the 29 May 1995 Great Barrington, MA, Tornado
Official Tornado Stats:
NCDC Event Details
A couple pictures of the damage: